Who Killed Jonbenet Essay, Research Paper

The brutal murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey on Christmas night in 1996

shocked America to its core. Just as the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder

seven decades earlier had seared the nation’s consciousness, this murder – of a

beautiful and talented child in a wealthy Boulder, Colorado home –renewed every

parent’s worst nightmare. It has been nearly three years since this violent

crime occurred and no one has been brought to justice.

At 6:48 p.m., Dec. 23, 1996, a 911 call was placed from the Ramsey home to the

Boulder Police Department. The call was terminated before a police dispatcher

could speak to the caller. Six minutes later the police called the Ramsey home,

but got a voice-mail message, so a police officer was dispatched to the house.

No police report was filed, so one must presume the officer was told that the

call was in error, and was satisfied with the explanation. At the time of that

call, the Ramsey’s were having their annual Christmas party, complete with a

Santa who passed out presents to neighborhood children. With so many people in

attendance, anyone could have inadvertently dialed 911 – but in retrospect,

self-styled experts on the case conclude too easily that JonBenet made the call.

Two days later, all four Ramseys went to the home of Fleet White, Jr., and

Priscilla White for Christmas dinner. Ramsey and White, a retired oil executive,

were best friends. The White’s 6-year-old daughter was JonBenet’s best friend.

Both families were prominent in Boulder.

At the time of that Christmas dinner, things were beginning to look up for the

Ramseys. For all their wealth, they’d had their share of misfortune. Patsy had

been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1994, and for a time had been bald because

of chemotherapy. In January 1992, John Ramsey’s daughter, Elizabeth Ramsey (from

a previous marriage) was killed in a car wreck. So, as the Ramseys sat down to

dinner at Fleet White’s house on Christmas, they were privileged in many ways,

but had also known their share of adversity. The Ramseys arrived home about 10

o’ clock that night and her father put JonBenet to bed.

Shortly after 5:45 am on the morning of December 26, 1996, Patsy phoned the

Boulder police in a panic about a ransom note she says she found on a staircase

leading to the kitchen. The note demanded $118,000 for the return of JonBenet.

Police arrived at the Ramsey home to monitor incoming phone calls. A cursory

search of the house was made, including the basement. One small storeroom in the

basement was skipped when John Ramsey reportedly said it had been painted shut.

The police left a few hours later to obtain a warrant to search the house for

evidence of a break-in. When they returned, they were surprised to find what

appeared to be a young child lying under the Christmas tree. It was JonBenet.

She appeared to be dead, and appeared to have been dead for a period of time.

John Ramsey told Detective Arndt that he had found JonBenet in the wine cellar

in the basement, underneath a blanket, with a piece of tape covering her mouth.

John Ramsey had removed the tape from her mouth before he carried JonBenet

upstairs to the first floor. There appeared to be a piece of cord loosely tied

around JonBenet’s right wrist. There were bloodstains in the crotch of her

panties, but not on her skin. In addition, there were dark fibers on her skin,

in the vaginal area, that caused police to believe her body had been wiped down

with a cloth. Apparently, during the police’s absence John Ramsey and a family

friend searched the house themselves.

Fingers of suspicion were pointed quickly in the direction of John Ramsey. The

foregoing search warrant affidavit was filed the same day JonBenet’s body was

found, and the resulting search warrant was the instrument by which her body was

removed from the house (normally a body would be removed with consent). In

addition to the body, the police wanted to search for fibers and any other

evidence that might lead to solving the crime.

Historically, when a murder occurs in the home – absent clear evidence of an

intruder – the police focus on the family members. The police began to suspect

that someone in the house was the author of the ransom note. That suspicion was

quickly bolstered when police discovered a note pad in the Ramsey house that not

only was the source of the ransom note, but contained a “practice note” similar

to the one given police by Patsy Ramsey.

JonBenet’s murder – particularly as the days went by and no arrests were

forthcoming — quickly became a national obsession, featured day after day on

network news, television tabloid programs, talk radio, newspapers and magazines.

Her image flitted across television screens innumerable times, often showing her

in a glittering cowgirl outfit, singing “I want to be a cowboy sweetheart,” or

dancing across the stage in a Las Vegas showgirl outfit, complete with heavy

makeup. Her unusual first name became so well known that like Cher, and Madonna,

That she no longer had needed a last name.

The public’s shock at the murder soon began to share equal time with its growing

dismay at the Boulder police’s investigation, a dismay fed by a steady stream of

leaks from the Boulder County prosecutor’s office about the inept police investigation being conducted. For one thing it became known that the police had

badly botched the initial investigation by failing to seal off the crime scene.

For another it appeared the police were treating the primary suspects –

JonBenet’s parents – with kid gloves by not only acquiescing to their refusal to

be interviewed at police headquarters, but also to being interviewed separately.

Fueled with such information, the media, especially the tabloid television and

talk radio shows were showing no such restraint toward the glamorous child’s

parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. Some in the media began to point the finger

directly at her father, while others implied it was her mother. Some speculated

the crime had to have been committed by both parents. JonBenet’s father, John

Ramsey, tried to dispel the rumors that he was involved when he said, “Let me

address this very directly: I didn’t kill my daughter JonBenet.”

In addition, initial press reports dwelt on JonBenet’s career on the

beauty-pageant circuit. As a contestant, the Boulder, Colorado, child dressed as

an adult (wearing lipstick and high heels) and

performed suggestive dances. JonBenet’s 40-year-old mother, Patricia (Patsy)

Ramsey, a former Miss America contestant, considered her young daughter her

confidante and bestfriend. Patsy had undergone chemotherapy, and various press

accounts accuse her of fulfilling her own beauty-pageant fantasies through

JonBenet.

The Ramseys hired criminal-defense lawyers to represent them four days after the

murder, even though they had not been named as suspects. These lawyers advised

them not to submit to

formal, videotaped police interviews until the police agreed to show the Ramseys

copies of the statement they had made to police the day of the murder. The

police agreed to the terms, and the couple was interviewed on May 1, 1997. There

was an hour-long break between John’s and Patsy’s interviews, which caused the

press to believe that may have given them time to coordinate their stories.

Critics claimed the district attorney’s office has bungled the case because it

has little experience with homicides: JonBenet was the college town’s only

murder victim in 1996. They said that the police mishandled the crime scene, by

allowing John Ramsey to search the house, and point out that the police allowed

the couple to leave town for several weeks prior to questioning them. This

absence, some speculated, gave the Ramseys time to work out a story to explain

their innocence.

During a press conference, the Boulder district attorney called JonBenet’s

parents “the focus” of his murder investigation. Police found no evidence of

forced entry into the house; nor was the new-fallen snow outside the home

disturbed by footprints. The only people known to have been inside the house at

the time of the murder were JonBenet’s parents and her 9-year-old brother.

The District Attorney also pointed out that the police also withheld important

pieces of evidence from public view, claiming that full disclosure would

jeopardize their investigation. The complete autopsy report remained sealed, and

the results of DNA tests performed on JonBenet’s bloodstained nightgown, her

hair, and the blood found underneath her fingernails also remained confidential.

In addition, he had established a task force that included two veterans of the

O.J. Simpson defense: law professor Barry Scheck and forensic expert Henry Lee.

The prosecutor said the victim’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, described as “a

target” of the grand jury probe, “have not been eliminated from the

investigation.”

Investigators called the ransom note a fake, citing its “intentional”

misspellings. After searching the Ramsey home, police found a legal pad on which

they believe the note was written. They also found a rough draft of the note on

the same pad. Details within the not indicated an intimate knowledge of the

Ramsey family. The amount demanded matched John Ramsey’s 1996 bonus. In

addition, the note ended with “Victory SBTC, ” which police said referred to the

Subic Bay Training Center, the defunct U.S. Navy base in the Philippines where

John Ramsey was stationed in the 1960s.

Police took five handwriting samples from Patsy Ramsey and compared them against

the 2?-page ransom note, the complete contents of which were not made public.

Police said Patsy’s handwriting samples were inconclusive because her manual

dexterity had been hampered by sedatives she had taken since JonBenet’s death.

They said that John Ramsey’s samples did not match the ransom note.

What motive would the Ramseys have to kill their daughter? The supermarket

tabloids ran riot with speculation, but family friends called the Ramseys gentle

and devoted parents. The Ramseys themselves theorized in an interview that one

of John’s disgruntled employees might have killed JonBenet. In an ad the Ramseys

published in the Boulder Sunday Camera, they

accused a convicted child molester of the crime. Police acknowledged that at

least 15 people (caterers, housekeepers, and contractors) had keys to the house.

The next question to be answered is, if the Ramseys didn’t do it, then who did?

There are two main theories. The first is that an unknown assailant, who entered

the house presumably via the basement window, murdered JonBenet. If this theory

is correct then the killer would have to be someone who:

? Was familiar with the layout of the house.

? Knew the Ramseys personally enough to know that John Ramsey received a bonus of $118,000.

? Was confident enough to spend the time to, not only commit the offence, but also had the presence of mind to write a long note in an attempt to draw suspicion away from them.

The other theory is one posed by former FBI agent and expert criminal profiler,

Robert Ressler. John and Patsy Ramsey agree with Ressler. His theory states:

? JonBenet knew her killer

? That the killer could have come from a small circle of friends around the

Ramsey home in Boulder

? That the circle would include family, neighbors, and employees of the Ramseys.

On October 13, 1999, District Attorney Alex Hunter called a press conference to

announce that a grand jury that had been assembled thirteen months previously to

hear the evidence of the case, had found that there was insufficient evidence to

charge any suspect with the murder of JonBenet. The grand jury was shown 30,000

pieces of evidence and heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, with forensic

experts and Ramsey family friends believed to be among them. Apart from John and

Patsy Ramsey, the police have never publicly named any additional suspects in

the case.

Where does all of this leave a JonBenet? Will her killer ever be brought to

justice? As reporters, former police officers, and John and Patsy Ramsey

continue to make money by selling their stories to publishing agencies, a

murderer is on the loose. A little girl’s life was taken away and no one has

taken responsibility for it.

As things stand, it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever be charged or

prosecuted for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey – unless someone were to come

forward and confess. It is my guess that no such killer will ever be caught, and

that we will never know any more about the murder of JonBenet Ramsey than we

know right now. Ironically, Patsy Ramsey said it best in an interview with

Dateline in July of 1998. “I don’t know what happened,” says Patsy Ramsey. “God

knows, and He’s not telling.”

Bibliography

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